Myths and not the ratio are the substance of morality

All this ethical ideas don’t speak about the real essence of human ethics, the tribal ethos. All the experiments to neglect the faith and the beliefs behind all the ethics brought only disaster. The truth is, the myths run our life and desires, even in our modern times.

What are all the marketing tools like, brands, Hollywood stars, false kings and princesses (like princes Diana, probably a very bad mother and wife, lets not mention her other follies), presidents and governors, fashion channel, Formula 1’s heroes and all the magazines around it that fill the airports, if not modern myths? Should we be surprised if the reality, mainly the scientific one, that is full of prediction about future, and nothing to put on the shelf of malls, real or virtual, is not a subject of public interest? They can alarm the world with warnings about global warming, that will have catastrophic consequences in the future, these people, full of modern myths will never listen to them? After all future is not our world. Who cares about the cultural and scientific wonders, created by committed individuals, who piece after piece accumulated the human knowledge, that enables the life of luxury in the modern world, most of the individuals enjoy. It is subject of interest of only very few freaks.

Then there is the other world of faith in ancient myths, sacred texts, sacred prophets, (mentioning their name improperly can bring masses of people to deadly rage), etc. Beliefs in sacredness of physical items, some that bring luck others curse. And what about belief in power of spells, pray, the whispers, abracadabra, etc.? Adding to it the spirits of the ancients, the died loved heroes and hated enemies, the spirits and the taboos.

To the ancient spirits believe systems we have to add the and newly recycled ones, the New Age phenomena, with the UFOs, the time travelers, the ex-terrestrial beings who visited us in their “Chariots of Gods”, built the pyramids, and left in hurry, etc.

All this is the tribal ethos, that justifies the old traditions and modern customes, that has nothing to do with rationality and scientifically understood reality. Yet if someone things that the majority of people are more interested in rationality than in the myths, i suggest him to compare the number of views in both kind of clips, and then judge who are the normative ones, and who are the freaks.

In the European history few times the people of reason tried to create moral codes based on reason, and then disregarded the myths as old-fashioned, primitive, irrelevant, disappearing, until the myths, the ancient or the new ones stroke back with ferocity. The first were the Greek-Romans, who supported cultural plurality and scientific thinking. In the first century before and after Jesus crucifixion many of the leading elites were Epicureans (as it appears including father in law of Julius Caesar) and followers of Stoicism, but then they were swept away by the Christianity. Also in eighteen and nineteen century Western Europe the belief in rationality went on. It ended with WWI, that was the victory of belief in German mythology of victimized superior nation. Then this myth was upgraded by Hitler and the Nazis and on the eastern side of Europe Stalin based its political morality on “communistic” mythology. After the disastrous 80 years war of 1914-1992 years, which almost was won by the regimes guided by newly created mythology, seemed as if finally the reason won upon the myths. (Viz. the famous, but incorrect essay of Francis Fukuyama first published in haste at 1989). But this illusion was swiftly swept away at September 11, 2001, if not few years before it, when unsuccessfully Muslim fundamentalist myth believers tried to crash a plane to Eiffel tower at 24 December 1994.